If you don't forget have you really forgiven?

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I’ m looking for an answer to this situation that I m in. It has to do with forgiveness.

My hubby had an affair with a really close family friend. I thought she was like a sister/best friend. Our ex friendship lasted 13 years. Our kids goes to the same school and class. We use to visit each others home. We go for vacation together. Once, it was found out. I was devastated. Their affair lasted almost a year.

My hubby and I are now trying to reconciled and give the marriage a chance. We have block her from our facebook and mobile. But being the one to fetch the kids from school, I have the unfortunate opportunity to see her from time to time. What should I do?

What is forgiveness in this situation? How to follow Christ’s commandment of " Love One another as I have Love You’?

Forgiving him is also difficult. but it must be done. but can it be forgotten??
 
Man_need_God said:
I’ m looking for an answer to this situation that I m in. It has to do with forgiveness.

My hubby had an affair with a really close family friend. I thought she was like a sister/best friend. Our ex friendship lasted 13 years. Our kids goes to the same school and class. We use to visit each others home. We go for vacation together. Once, it was found out. I was devastated. Their affair lasted almost a year.

My hubby and I are now trying to reconciled and give the marriage a chance. We have block her from our facebook and mobile. But being the one to fetch the kids from school, I have the unfortunate opportunity to see her from time to time. What should I do?

What is forgiveness in this situation? How to follow Christ’s commandment of " Love One another as I have Love You’?

Forgiving him is also difficult. but it must be done. but can it be forgotten??
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Dear one,
What a terrible situation to be in…Of course this cannot be forgotten. It is part of your “memory bank” and that simply cannot be undone. The best you can do is to build fences around it so that it does not become a controlling factor in your life. That is the issue you face here…

As to the matter of seeing the other woman, I think that the primary thing is the kids. They do not deserve to be hurt in this as I am sure you agree. When you see this other woman treat her as no more than an “acquaintance”. A simple, cordial hello and goodbye should be sufficient.

You ask how to Love as Christ Loved…perhaps it would be easier to examine how to Love the other as you Love yourself. Consider in your own heart how you would feel and how you would react and what you would expect if you were in the situation of having deeply hurt a dear friend.
You would recognize that this hurt had permanently altered the relationship no matter how repentant those involved are. You would recognize that trust had been broken and that cannot be forgotten or overlooked. Most important, because of this recognition, you would not wish to unduly force yourself on the other, thereby causing greater pain for them. You would wish to give them room, respect their pain and not wish to aggravate that pain.
Realizing these things can help you to know how to act and react to this woman.

The main problem in these situations is that there is a whole range of feelings, emotions, decisions, etc that one must go through. There is anger, and hurt, and denial, and then there is the sorting out, the deciding how to proceed, etc…
Entangled in this are issues of both forgiving and trust…
In a case such as this, often times forgiveness amounts to letting go a any feelings of anger and hate toward another, any desire to retaliate against them, and instead hope and pray for their well being and redemption.
That said, this decision to forgive as above, does not mean that trust and friendship have not been damaged or destroyed. It would be foolish to think that anyone could go on as if nothing had happened…

Sorry that the above is a bit disjointed…So much to try to say…and I can’t seem to get my thoughts together…I hope some of it is of help…

Peace
James
 
http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/files/2010/01/pope-agca-prison-350x239-custom.jpg

Do you remember this picture? This was JPII visiting the guy that had tried to kill him. This picture was take about 2.5 years after the attempted murder (JPII had forgiven him almost immediately after the attempt, forgave him publicly 4 days after asking people to pray for the man). JPII didn’t forget. He prayed for that man and even visited him in jail, and let that man know, in person, that he had forgiven him.

I think when we say we need to forget it means we should not try to seek revenge etc., we should not let it fester in our hearts. But, as many have mentioned already, sometimes it is prudent to not forget the situation after forgiving the person.
 
PattiC said:
I had a discussion with a friend of mine who says that if I haven’t forgotten whatever issue or thing that was done to me that means I haven’t really forgiven the person who caused it.
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You cannot remove the historical record from your brain, you can only limit the extent to which you care, but that power is limited by your psychology. You can ask God for help in getting over things but again, it’s in our nature that the brain keeps some sort of historical record, a log as it were, of things happening in our lives.

On the other hand, if by forgetting you mean acting like it never happened, then the matter is more complex. It may be that perfect forgiveness would require us to act like e.g. the husband or wife never cheated, children never lied, etc. but one can’t really say that e.g. a wife should keep living with an unrepentant wife beater who won’t stop the abuse. On the other hand, I understand that when people do act that way, they may be moved by very radical Christian forgiveness (the kind that sometimes changes those abusers into good Christians in the end and sanctifies the forgiving person at any rate) and not being passive doormats.
 
lifeisbeautiful said:
http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/files/2010/01/pope-agca-prison-350x239-custom.jpg

Do you remember this picture? This was JPII visiting the guy that had tried to kill him. This picture was take about 2.5 years after the attempted murder (JPII had forgiven him almost immediately after the attempt, forgave him publicly 4 days after asking people to pray for the man). JPII didn’t forget. He prayed for that man and even visited him in jail, and let that man know, in person, that he had forgiven him.

I think when we say we need to forget it means we should not try to seek revenge etc., we should not let it fester in our hearts. But, as many have mentioned already, sometimes it is prudent to not forget the situation after forgiving the person.
Click to expand...
Let’s also remember that the Pope took measures to keep himself safe from future attempts on his life. He didn’t forget that someone tried to kill him, he did forgive this particular individual, but he wasn’t inviting him to dinner at the Vatican either. They didn’t become best buds or anything, the Pope took the proper measures to keep himself safe from this man and any others that wished to cause the Pope harm.
 
PattiC said:
I had a discussion with a friend of mine who says that if I haven’t forgotten whatever issue or thing that was done to me that means I haven’t really forgiven the person who caused it.

I don’t remember ever seeing anything about this in the NT, but he insists that it is inferred in the writings of the apostle Paul. Here I thought I was making spiritual progress in making a choice to forgive and I’m being told it isn’t enough!!! I am planning on asking my parish priest about this, but in the meantime… if anyone has thoughts on this or anything definitive I would really appreciate hearing from you. If what he says is true, then I will never make it to heaven, kwim? I told him his thinking was really radical and he said that Catholicism IS radical!

Please help!
thank you,
Patti:confused:
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“So you’re saying no one has ever done anything wrong to you?”
“Well, no, of course they have.”
“In that case, you haven’t forgiven them, have you? And if you don’t really remember anyone ever doing anything wrong to you, how can you judge people who have had someone do something wrong to them?”

Let us say that when you were wronged, you could zap your brain and not remember the matter of a sin against you at all. If you could forget entirely, in what sense would you have forgiven? How can you let go of a desire for vengeance when you don’t even remember that you were wronged? You would just be ignorant of the offense, not forgiving of it.

Worse yet, if your friend were right, then of course we ought to expect ourselves to return people who have abused the trust of others back to a position of trust. After all, if we have forgiven them, the abuse of trust never happened, right?

Unless what is meant by “forget” is “to let go of dwelling on the matter”, the premise that you literally have to forget in order to really forgive is kind of ridiculous. To literally require yourself to forget all mistreatment in your past as a moral necessity isn’t even reasonable.

It is necessary to be able to let go of a desire to dwell on the hurt we suffered and to let go of a desire for vengeance due to offenses against us, but it is not reasonable to literally forget the incidents altogether. There is nothing wrong with requiring those who have wronged us to earn our trust again, either. Those who have demonstrated a lack of integrity may rightly be excluded from positions of trust in the future. This isn’t rocket science.
 
PatriceA said:
Let’s also remember that the Pope took measures to keep himself safe from future attempts on his life. He didn’t forget that someone tried to kill him, he did forgive this particular individual, but he wasn’t inviting him to dinner at the Vatican either. They didn’t become best buds or anything, the Pope took the proper measures to keep himself safe from this man and any others that wished to cause the Pope harm.
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While not discounting the intention behind you comments I would surmise that is was others who took the steps to further ensure the safety of the pontiff.

My guess is that JP II, having no fear of death would have preferred “pressing the flesh” and who knows, if it had been possible maybe he would have invited his would be assassin to dinner.
The Holy Father is very often not really free to do many things as he might choose…

Peace
James
 
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